After A Decade Of Misery, Devils Fans Deserve This Season
It’s not easy being a Devils fan. Though rabid, the base lacks the numbers of their nearest rivals in Manhattan, Philadelphia, and on Long Island. The team is mostly an afterthought in the metropolitan area--only one independent beat reporter from an established outlet covers the team.
The franchise’s recent record of futility hasn’t helped. New Jersey’s three Stanley Cups are but a distant memory, and only to those only to those (like me) who were born (many moons) before the millennial. So, for Devils fans tormented from more than a decade of supporting an uninspiring product, Tuesday night had to feel special. Yes, the 2017-18 Devils sprouted a bit of magic behind an MVP season from Taylor Hall, but that was an eighth seed team that got outclassed in the first round of the playoffs by Tampa Bay in five games.
That was nothing compared to what the Devils have already achieved this season.
In its final regular season contest at The Rock, New Jersey (51-22-8) routed the desperate Sabres, 6-2, on Tuesday to clinch home ice advantage for next week’s first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. With a road game in Washington remaining on Thursday, the Devils still have a shot at making up the one point they’d need to catch Carolina, who plays its finale at Florida on Thursday, for first place in the Metropolitan Division. In the process, the Devils have matched the franchise record for wins in a season and tied the NHL mark for the largest one-year turnaround, improving by 47 points over last season’s fifth-worst league performance.
The playoffs, obviously, will be a new test, and there will be disappointment should the Devils make an early exit. However, that would be a post for a later date. At this moment, it’s ok for Devils fans to take a brief pause to marvel at what has transpired over the last six months.
For no one, not even the most rose-colored glasses fan, Devils superstar Jack Hughes, or their General Manager Tom Fitzgerald, saw this coming, at least not to this degree. Heck, after the Devils dropped their first two games of the season by identical 5-2 scores, it sure looked like same-old, same-old to me. The Prudential Center faithful loudly called for Fitzgerald to “Fire Lindy” Ruff as Head Coach when the Devils fell behind the lowly Ducks, 2-0, after one period of Game 3.
It’s been all joy since that intermission, with the ensuing 4-2 comeback victory marking the start of a ridiculous 21-2-1 run that included a franchise record-tying 13-game winning streak. By the middle of that stretch, Devils fans vocalized their mea culpa by chanting, “Sorry, Lindy!”
The team coalesced at such a historic rate, it caught the hockey world by surprise. The young core of Hughes, captain Nico Hischier, and Jesper Bratt raised their levels to heights not seen since the club’s glory days. Fitzgerald’s offseason acquisitions, most notably goalie Vitek Vanecek and defenseman John Marion, were immensely impactful in helping Ruff shore up long-term defensive issues.
As with any team not based in Boston, the Devils had a couple of lulls, which made some question whether their boosters had run their course. Could the goaltending, with the untested former Capital Vanecek as the No. 1, hold up over the entire season? Could their depth withstand the inevitable injuries that can send teams into tailspins? Would their high-octane style and relative physicality disadvantage succeed when the competition tightened down the stretch?
The answer to every challenge proved to be a resounding “Yes!” New Jersey not only held off a hard late charge by the Rangers, who would be their first-round opponent should the Division standings hold, they gained ground on the Hurricanes by winning five of their last seven games.
And they did it by sticking to their identity. Led by Hughes, who broke the franchise mark for points in a season with a late empty-netter on Tuesday, the Devils have kicked it into another gear. Aside from an outlier 6-1 loss in Winnipeg on a rough back-to-back on April 2, New Jersey outscored its opposition, 28-10, in the other six contests.
Vanecek, the only Devils goalie to reach 30 wins in a season besides The GOAT Martin Brodeur, earned No. 33 on Tuesday with another excellent outing. He stopped 36 of 38 shots from the Sabres, who were eliminated from postseason contention with the loss. NaturalStatTrick.com’s expected goals metric had Buffalo outscoring New Jersey, 3.5-2, except that Vanecek stood on his head to stone 10 of 11 high danger opportunities. Should Ruff go with Mackenzie Blackwood in net for the Washington game, Vanecek will finish the season ranked 15th in the league among the 55 goalies who played at least 20 games in NST’s goals saved over average metric.
That might not seem like an amazing feat, until you recall what a mess the Devils goaltending situation has been for most of the last decade. Last season, injuries and ineptitude forced New Jersey to utilize seven different netminders, who combined to rank last in team save percentage.
It should be noted that the Devils’ goalies were helped immensely by the skaters in front, who bought into Ruff’s system to dominate puck possession in the majority of the games. The defensemen improved their efficiencies in their own zone and ended more plays early with tighter gaps. And when appropriate, they were encouraged to join the team’s fearsome rush. Jonas Siegenthaler rifled one home as the trailer on one such opportunity to give the Devils a 2-0 lead early in Tuesday’s second period.
Hughes has earned accolades for his magnificent season, but the Devils wouldn’t be where they are without major contributions throughout their four lines. Six different players reached the 20-goal marker, including previously snakebitten Tomas Tartar after his two third period tallies put the Sabres away.
And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Hischier and Miles Wood, two of the four holdovers (along with Bratt and Damon Severson) from that 2017-18 squad. I found it fitting that Hischier registered two assists, including one on Wood’s game-winner, in front of a raucous home crowd that had waited so long for what I had been calling a neverending rebuild to actually end.